


threefold

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Series: i look at you and there's no speech left in me [7]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Multi, Pre Canon, Pre Relationship, in which it is About The Longing, very minor references to homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27318211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: There’s nothing quite like Luke during a performance, with the adrenaline stretched between them, with their fingertips raw, with the world suspended between them. There’s nothing quite like the way Luke spins about himself, nothing quite like his shirts, slashed open with Reggie’s good fabric shears, and a seam as neat as hand stitching can get them. He wraps his hand around the nape of Reggie’s neck and on the back of Alex’ shoulder, tucks himself into the way their hearts beat high in their throats or perhaps somewhere hidden deep within their ribcages.
Relationships: Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: i look at you and there's no speech left in me [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015690
Comments: 24
Kudos: 140





	threefold

> I want to utter you. I want to portray you  
>  not with lapis or gold, but with colors made of apple  
>  bark.  
>  There is no image I could invent  
>  that your presence would not eclipse.
> 
> – **Rainer Maria Rilke** , Book of Hours: Love Poems to God; from ‘ _Ich war bei den ältesten Mönchen, den Malern und Mythenmeldern_ ’, tr. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

Luke sings like he’s somehow forgotten about the world around him, as if he knows nothing but the hum of Reggie’s bass deep in his bones and the beat of Alex’ drums under his skin and hidden in his voice box. He plucks at his guitar and the chains on his trousers and his vocal chords and all his life that lies spun about them until there is nothing but this music and their voices and the feedback from the microphones filling the space between Reggie’s mouth and his – or perhaps the space between Alex’ smile and his own words still clung to it.

There’s nothing quite like Luke during a performance, with the adrenaline stretched between them, with their fingertips raw, with the world suspended between them. There’s nothing quite like the way Luke spins about himself, nothing quite like his shirts, slashed open with Reggie’s good fabric shears, and a seam as neat as hand stitching can get them. He wraps his hand around the nape of Reggie’s neck and on the back of Alex’ shoulder, tucks himself into the way their hearts beat high in their throats or perhaps somewhere hidden deep within their ribcages.

They don’t touch, during a performance, not with the microphone and the bass and the guitar and the drum set between them, with all these lights and all these eyes bright and clear on all their skin. So Reggie leans into the microphone and Luke’s smile, into the way his mouth tilts, and the way his hand lies wrapped around the microphone stand, warm and trembling, so close that Reggie can almost taste his voice at the tip of his tongue, can almost feel the heat of him. Alex drums in a beat or maybe a breath or maybe something else entirely, wraps his mouth and his life around all that Luke could never tell his parents, something pacing around their studio until Luke reaches for him, both hands on his jaw, a trembling thing – adrenaline.

So after each show, the first thing Luke does is to reach for them with a laugh and his rough voice, with his calloused hands. He smiles at them, something dimpled and full of light, and they do not kiss him. He puts his hand on their backs and his palms against their cheeks and his hands in theirs and they do not kiss him.

There’s something stretched between the three of them, who’s to say what it is?

Reggie doesn’t pace when he’s upset, not in the way Luke and Alex do, wringing their hands and their lives and the hems of their shirts until they’ve worried it all ragged. Instead, he opens his mouth, with his cheeks blotched red, and talks until there’s not a breath left inside of him. When the grease fire smouldering underneath his mother’s skin and tucked into his father’s throat gets hit with a splash of water, he grabs his bag and his bass and the words between his ribs, and buries them all in Luke’s couch, pillow-heavy and full of half written songs about the shape of his mouth or the red high on his cheekbones. The way his voice sounds draped about a microphone.

There’s nothing quite like Reggie’s voice – pitched high in disbelief or controlled on a stage, with all their lives tethered to it and the soft echo of his bass so close under their skin that they can almost taste it, a little like that one time he’d taken Bobby’s parents’ kitchen and spent two hours cooking, with Luke sitting on the kitchen table and Alex trying to stick a spoon into the pot he was stirring. It tastes a little like the warmth of the rising winter sun; an ache deep in their bones.

On stage, he is nothing but energy, holding onto his bass and this music with his two good hands; calloused. He leans into Luke’s space until Luke can’t quite comprehend singing anymore, Reggie’s hands and mouth so close that he could touch them, if he only angled himself right. If he only reached for him, pulled him in by the shirt or maybe his jacket or maybe his necklace, heavy in Luke’s palms. Reggie plucks his bass at Alex and the anxiety deep within his drums, the beat of it in tandem with his own heartbeat, or perhaps just the way his skin thrums at the sight of him, all grins and his back to the audience, his eyes big enough to keep all the world inside of them.

Reggie stays with them, open mouthed and pink cheeked and flushed and they don’t kiss him. Reggie tucks his country songs into Luke’s notebook and his hands into Alex’ hair and they don’t kiss him. Alex smiles, open mouthed, around this song, and Reggie laughs and jumps and sings Luke’s music back at him and –

There’s something stretched between the three of them, who’s to say what it is?

Alex is the heartbeat of all their songs. With a smile and the sleeves of his sweater tucked into his palms, with a tap against his leg or against Reggie’s back or maybe Luke’s arm, he sits between them, stringing up their whole world by his drumsticks, all soft pinks and the gold chain Luke spent all his gig money on months ago, warm and solid on his chest. There’s always a beat about him – in his hands or in his fingers or in his feet, in a pace or a hug or stuck in his throat. He doesn’t touch either of them for months, with his breath held behind his teeth and his drumming something harsh against these garage doors.

Until he comes out and all Luke can do is reach for him. Until he sits, worrying his hands and his bottom lip and all his words until Reggie laughs, something soft in the fabric of Alex’ sweater, a haze of pink fabric and pink cheeks. “Bro”, he says, and tilts his head, “you know you can keep touching us, right?” Luke doesn’t kiss him. Alex smiles, and his lips look soft, and so close to his fingertips.

“Yeah”, he says, and leans back into Reggie, something like warm skin and the buzz of all these shows charged between them. Reggie doesn’t kiss him. Instead, he leans into him, his blood high in his ears. “You’re okay”, he says, and Alex exhales.

On stage, Alex sits at the back, with his drums sprawled out in front of him and the microphone close enough to touch his lips. He never wears his hats, then, runs his hands through his hair before every show until it lies, mussed and messed and with their breath tangled in it. He plays his drums, steady and even, with Reggie’s eyes on him and Luke’s music at his fingertips. There’s nothing quite like Alex under stage lights, dipped in pink, dimpled and with his mouth fitted around Luke’s lyrics, with his drums in tandem with Reggie’s bass.

Alex doesn’t go back home, and spends his nights tucked into Luke’s couch, into Luke’s sheets, and curled around Reggie and his flannels, tucking at his banjo. Alex hums along, a smile on his lips, and Reggie doesn’t kiss him. Luke wakes Alex in the mornings, sun-drowned, and tangled with him, and he doesn’t kiss him.

There’s something stretched between the three of them, who’s to say what it is?


End file.
